“Grant me the grace, Lord God Almighty, to compose a few beautiful verses
which will prove to me that I am not the least of all men.”

(Starkie,
1958, 535)

“Lord, my God! You the Creator, You the Master; You who has made law and
liberty; You the Sovereign who lets things be; You the Judge who forgives;
You who is full of motives and causes, and whom, perhaps, has placed within
my spirit the taste of horror to convert my heart, like healing at the point
of a knife; Lord, have mercy, have mercy of fools and foolishness! O
Creator! Can there be monsters in the eyes of Him who knows why they exist,
how they are made, and how they could not have been made?”

(Ibid. 547)

HARRIET
BEECHER STOWE

“God
always makes most prosperous those who are most obedient to His laws in the
Bible.”

(Wagenknecht,
1965, 177)

“I think the All Wise often thinks beyond the words of our prayers and gives
us the real thing.”

(Ibid. 203)

“Still, still with Thee, when the purple morning breaketh,

When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;

Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,

Dawns the sweet consciousness,
I am with Thee!

(Ibid. 211)

“My God is my ever present medium of communication with

the
unseen, and communion with Him is the firmest of realities to me.”

(Ibid. 212)

“He (Harriet’s brother) and I are Christ worshippers, adoring Him as the
Image of the invisible God.”

(Ibid. 217)

“For who is this Jesus? Not a man who died eighteen hundred years ago; but a
living God, who claims at this moment to be the Prince of the kings of the
earth--to be the great reigning and working Force, who must reign till He
has put all things under His feet.”

(Ibid. 218)

BRONTE,
EMILY

NO
COWARD SOUL IS MINE

No
coward soul is mine,

No
trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:

I see
Heaven’s glory shine,

And
faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God
within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life,
that in me has rest,

As I,
undying life, have power in Thee!

Vain
are the thousand creeds

That
move man’s hearts: unutterably vain;

Worthless as withered weeds,

Or
idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To
waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thy infinity,

So
surely anchored on

The
steadfast rock of immortality.

With
wide-embracing love

Thy
Spirit animates eternal years,

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and moon were gone,

And
suns and universes ceased to be,

And
Thou wert left alone,

Every
existence would exist in Thee.

There
is not room for Death,

Nor
atom that His might could render void:

Thou
-- THOU art Being and Breath,

And
what THOU art may never be destroyed.

(Bronte, 1998)

“The world is not necessary to God as God is to the world. But, it is the
expression of His mind, and the field in which His thoughts and purposes are
being actualized. Whatever we can learn about nature teaches us about God.”

(Inge,
1933, 16)

ROBERT BROWNING

From
“Christmas-Eve”

V

From the heart beneath,
as if, God speeding me,

I entered His church
door, nature leading me

In youth I looked to
these very skies,

and probing their
immensities ,

I found God there, His
visible power;

---------

My soul brought all to a
single test

That He the Eternal
First and Last,

Who, in His power, had
so surpassed

All man conceives of
what is might,

Whose wisdom, too,
showed infinite,

Would prove as
infinitely good;

--------

V

And I shall behold Thee,
face to face,

O God, and in Thy light
retrace

How in all I loved Thee,
still wast Thou!

Whom pressing to, then,
as I fain would now,

I shall find as able to
satiate

The love, Thy
gift, as my spirit=s
wonder

Thou art able to quicken
and sublimate,

With this sky of Thine,
that I now walk under,

And glory in Thee for,
as I gaze

Thus, thus! Oh, let men
keep their ways

Of seeking Thee in a
narrow shrine --

Be this my way! And
this mine!

BROWNING___

------------------------------

VII

Thou art the love of God
-- above

His power, didst hear me
place His love,

And that was leaving the
world for Thee.

Therefore Thou must not
turn from me

As I had chosen the
other part!

Folly and pride o=ercame
my heart.

Our best is bad, nor
bear Thy test;

Still, it should be our
very best.

I thought it best that
Thou, the spirit,

Be worshiped in spirit
and in truth,

And in beauty, as even
we require it---

Not in the forms
burlesque, uncouth,

I left but now, as
scarcely fitted

For Thee: I knew not
what I pitied.

Bu, all I felt there,
right or wrong,

What is it to Thee, who
curest sinning?

Am I not weak as Thou
art strong?

I have looked to Thee
from the beginning,

Straight up to Thee
through all the world

Which, like an idle
scroll, lay furled

To nothingness on either
side:

And since the time Thou
wast descried,

Spite of the weak heart,
so have I

Lived ever, and so fain
would die,

Living and dying, Thee
before!

Bu if Thou leavest
me-----

IX

In flows heaven, with
its new day

Of endless life, when he
who trod,

Very man and very God,

This earth is weakness,
shame and pain,

Dying the death whose
signs remain

Up yonder on the
accursed tree, --

Shall come again, no
more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in
all,

King of Kings, Lords of
lords,

As His servant John
received the words,

AI
died, and live for evermore!”

XVI

So what is left for us,
save, in growth

Of soul, to rise up, for
the past both,

From the gift looking to
the giver,

And from the cistern to
the river,

And from the finite to
infinity,

And from man’s
dust to God’s
divinity?

XVII

Supreme in Christ as we
all confess,

Why need we prove would
avail no jot

To make Him God, if God
he were not?

(Browning, 1912, 11-42)

From “Easter
Day”

I

How very hard it is to
be

A Christian! Hard for
you and me,

--Not the mere task of
making real

That duty up to its
ideal,

Effecting thus, complete
and whole,

A purpose of the human
soul --

For that is always hard
to do;

But hard, I mean, for me
and you

To realize it, more or
less,

With even the moderate
success

Which commonly repays
our strife

To carry out the aims of
life.

(Ibid. 44)

XXXI

Thou Love of God! Or
let me die,

Or grant what shall seem
heaven almost!

Let me not know that all
is lost,

Though lost it be --
leaves me not tied

To this despair, this
corpse-like bride!

Let that old life seem
mine -- no more--

With limitation as
before,

With darkness, hunger,
toil, distress:

Be all the earth a
wilderness!

Only let me go on, go
on,

Still hoping ever and
anon

To reach one eve the
Better land!

(Ibid. 74)

ELIZABETH BROWNING

So
oft the doing of God’s will

Our foolish heart undoeth!

And
yet what idle dream breaks ill,

Which morning-light subdueth?

And
who would murmur and misdoubt,

When
God’s great sunrise find him out?

(Ricks, 1970, 134)

THE MEASURE

Hymn IV

God
the creator, with a pulseless hand

Of
unoriginated power, hath weighed

The
dust of earth and tears of man in one

Measure, and by one weight:

So saith His holy book.

Shall
we, then, who have issued from the dust

And
there return, - shall we, who toil for dust,

And
wrap our winnings in this dusty life,

Say ‘No more tears, Lord God!

The measure runneth o’er?

Oh,
Holder of the balance, laughest Thou?

Nay,
Lord! Be gentler to our foolishness,

For
his sake who assumed our dust and turns

On Thee pathetic eyes

Still moistened with our tears.

And
teach us, o our Father, while we weep,

To
look in patience upon the earth and learn -

Waiting, in the meek gesture, till at last

These tearful eyes be filled

With the dry dust of death.

(Ibid. 136-137)

“God
hath transfixed us, - we, so moved before,

Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,

We
anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,

And
hear submissive o’er the stormy main

God’s
chartered judgements walk for evermore.”

(Ibid. 138)

“God
keeps His holy mysteries

Just on the outside of man’s dream.”

(Ibid, 165)

“God is the perfect poet.”

(Ricks, 1970, 28)

ANTON CHEKHOV

“May
God guard you.”

(Koteliansky,
1965, 155)

“The
peace of God . . . be with you.”

(Ibid. 162)

“All
is in the hands of God.”

(Ibid. 196)

“Glory be to God.”

(Ibid. 264)

“The
gospels . . . are indeed truth.”

(Ibid. 273)

“I
consider his (Tolstoy’s) faith to be nearest and most akin to mine.”

(Ibid. 273)

“Modern culture is but the beginning of a work for a great future, a work
which will go on, perhaps, for ten of thousands of years, in order that
mankind may, even in the remote future, come to know the truth of a real God
-- that is, not by guessing, not by seeking in Dostoevsky, but by perceiving
clearly, as one perceives that twice two is four.”

(Ibid. 282)

DANTE ALIGHIERI

“I believe in one God sole and eternal, who

Moves
the whole universe

With
love and with desire;

And
for such belief I have proofs

Physical and metaphysical, and

Also
the truth that rains.”

From
Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.

(Dante, Paradiso, Canto XXIV, 125-132)

The
glory of Him who moves all

Penetrates the universe, and is resplendent

in
one part more and less in another.

(Ibid. Canto I, 1-3)

“We
should know, in this regard, that God and nature create nothing in vain, and
that whatever is created serves some purpose.”

(Dante, On World Government, I, iii)

“God
who is the absolute world government.”

(Ibid. I, vii)

‘Mankind resembles God most when it is most unified, for the true ground of
unity exists in Him alone.”

(Ibid. I, viii)

“Mankind is best when it follows the footsteps of Heaven as far as its
nature permits.”

(Ibid. I, ix)

“The
whole heaven is governed in all its parts , motions, and movers by a single
motion, the Primum Mobile,and by a single mover, God.”

(Ibid. I, ix)

“Whatever in human society God really wills must be regarded as truly and
genuinely right.”

(Ibid. II, ii)

“Since God achieves the highest perfection, and since his instruments, the
heavens, are without fault, only one alternative is left: any fault in
things here below must be due to a fault in God’s raw material, and must be
external to the plans of the God of creation and of Heaven.”

(Ibid. II, ii)

“Christ ... is the door of our eternal dwelling.”

(Ibid. II, vii)

“God
alone elevates. He alone establishes governments.”

(Ibid. III, viii)

“Him
alone, who is the master, of all things spiritual and temporal.”

(Ibid. III, viii)

“Him
alone is the ruler of all things spiritual and temporal”

(Ibid
III. xvi)

DANIEL DEFOE

“God . . . has posted an army of ministering spirits, call them angels if
you will; ... I say posted them around this convex, this globe, the earth,
to be ready at all events, to execute His orders and to do His will
reserving still to Himself to send express messengers of a superior rank on
extraordinary occasions. These may, without any absurdity, be supposed
capable of assuming shape. Conversing with mankind, either in ordinary or
extraordinary way, either by voice or sound, though in appearances and
borrowed shapes, or by private notices of things, impulses, forebodings,
misgivings, and other imperceptible communications to the minds of men, as
God their great employer may direct.”

(Defoe, 1840, 56-57)

“To say it is not to be expected God should cause such a host of glorious
spirits to attend on this little point, the earth, and this despicable
species called man, would be but to oblige me to say: ‘what, may not God be
supposed to do for that creature whom he loved so as to send his only
begotten son to redeem?”

(Ibid. 56)

GRAZIA DELEDDA

“I love my fellow man, I love those who suffer,

I
love my God.”

(Scano,
1972, 38)

“I
see my future clearly, and because I can see that God loves me, I wait

for
my destiny with serenity.”

(Deledda,
1964, 1106)

CHARLES DICKENS

“Remember! It is Christianity TO DO GOOD always - even to those who do evil
to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbour as ourself, and to do to all
men as we would have them DO to us. It is Christianity to be gentle,
merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts,
and never make a boast of them, or of our prayers or our love of God, but
always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything.
If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us
our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace.”

(Walder,
1981, 13)

“The Divine teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and
wise. You all know He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a
little child. As the utmost results of the wisdom of men can only be at last
to raise this earth to that condition to which His doctrine, untainted by
the blindnesses and passions of men would have exalted it long ago; so let
us always remember that He has set us the example of blending the
understanding and the imagination, and that, following it ourselves, we
tread on His steps, and help our race onto its better and best days.”

(Ibid. 175)

“Nothing is discovered without God’s intention and assistance, and I suppose
every new knowledge of His works that is conceded to man to be distinctly a
revelation by which men are to guide themselves.

(Ibid. 175)

“I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the Christian
religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the impossibility of your
going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it.”

(Ibid. 195)

“ I have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life
and lessons of Our Saviour; because I feel i t . . . But I have never made
proclamation of this from the house tops.”

(Ibid. 195)

JOHN DONNE

HOLY SONNETS

I

Thou
has made me, and shall Thy works decay?

Repair me now, for now my hand doth haste,

I
runne to death, and death meets me as fast,

And
all my pleasures are like yesterday;

(Donne, 236)

II

As
due by many titles I resigne

My
selfe to Thee, O God, first I was made

By
Thee, and for Thee, and when I was decay’d

Thy
blood bought that, the which was Thine;

I am
Thy sonne, made with Thy selfe to shine.

(Ibid, 236)

IX

But
who am I, that dare dispute with Thee

Oh
God? Oh! Of thine onely worthy blood,

And
drowne in it my sinnes black memorie;

That
Thou remember them, some claime as debt,

I
thinke it mercy if Thou wilt forget.

(Ibid, 239)

XVI

Father, part of His double interest

Unto
Thy kingdome, Thy Sonne gives to me,

His
joynture in the knottie Trinitie

Hee
keepes, and gives to me His deaths conquest.

This
Lambe, whose death, with life the world hath blest,

Was
from the world’s beginning slaine, and He

Hath
made two Wills, which with the Legacie

Of
His and Thy kingdome,doe Thy Sonnes invest.

Yet
such are Thy laws, that men argue yet

Whether a men those statutes can fulfill;

None
doth; but all healing grace and spirit

Revive againe what law and letter kill.

Thy
lawes abridgement, and Thy last command

Is
all but love; Oh let this last Will stand!

(Ibid, 242)

“What eye can fixe it self upon east and West at once? And he must see more
than East and West, that sees God, for God spreads infinitely beyond both;
God alone is all; not onley all that is, but all that is not, all that might
be if He would have it be. God is too large, too immense, and then man is
too narrow, too little to be considered; for, who can fixe his eye upon an
atome?”

(Ibid, 3

SERMON 3

“For, if we consider God in the present, to day, now, God hath had as long a
forenoone, as he shall have an afternoone; God has beene God, as many
millions of millions of generations, already, as hee shall be hereafter; but
if we consider man in the present, today, now, how short a forenoone hath
any man had.; if 60; If 80. Yeeres, yet few and evill have his daies beene.
Nay if we take man collectively, entirely, altogether, all mankind , how
short a forenoone hath man had?It is not yet 6000 yeeres, since man had his
first being. But if we consider him in his Afternoone, in his future state,
in his life after death, if every miniute of his 6000 yeeres, were
multipli’d by so many millions of ages, all would amount to nothing, meerely
nothing, in respect to that Eternity, which he is to dell in. We can express
man’s Afternoone , his future Perpetuity, his everlastingnesse, but one way;
But it is a faire way, a noble way; This; That how late a beginning soever
God gave man, man shell no more see an end, no more die, than God Himselfe,
that gave him life.”

(Ibid, 350-351)

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

“I have often and repeatedly prayed on my knees for a pure heart, and for a
pure, sinless, calm, dispassionate style.”

(Lowe, 1991, 290)

“People here are trying with all their might to wipe me off the face of the
earth for the fact that I preach God and national roots.”

(Ibid. 302)

“The beautiful is the ideal; with us as in civilized Europe, have long been
wavering. There is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ.
That infinitely lovely figure is, as a matter of course, an infinite
marvel.”

(Sandoz,
1971, 42)

“I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me . . . I
believe that there is nothing holier, deeper, more sympathetic, more
rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself
with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but there
could be no one.”

(Ibid. 46)

“No religion has brought the mystery of the need for atonement or expiation
to so complete, so profound, or so powerful expression as Christianity.”

(Ibid. 57)

“That God none the less admits access to Himself and intimacy with Himself
is not a mere matter of course; it is a grace beyond our mere power to
apprehend, a prodigious paradox.”

(Ibid. 59)

JOHN DRYDEN

What weight of ancient
witness can prevail

If private reason hold
the public scale?

But, gracious God, how
well dost Thou provide

For erring judgements an
unerring guide!

Thy throne is darkness
in th’abyss of light,

A blaze of glory that
forbids the sight.

O teach me to believe
Thee thus conceal’d,

And search no further
than Thyself reveal’d.

(Untermeyer, 1959, 205)

T.S. ELIOT

Lord, shall we not bring these gifts to Your service?

Shall
we not bring to Your service all our powers

For
life, for dignity, grace and order,

And
intellectual pleasures of the senses?

The
Lord who created must wish us to create

And
employ our creation again in His service

Which is already His service in creating.

(Smidt,
1961, 55)

“We
build in vain unless the Lord build with us.”

(Buxton, 520)

“O
weariness of men who turn from God

To the grandeur of your
mind and the glory of your action,

To arts and inventions
and daring enterprises,

To the schemes of human
greatness thoroughly discredited,

Binding the earth and
the water to your service,

Exploiting the seas and
developing the mountains,

Dividing the stars into
common and preferred,

Engaged in devising the
perfect refrigerator,

Engaged in working out a
rational morality,

Engaged in printing as
many books as possible,

Plotting of happiness
and flinging empty bottles,

Turning from your
vacancy to fevered enthusiasm

For nation or race or
what you call humanity;

Though You forget the
way to the Temple,

There is one who
remembers the way to your door:

Life you may evade, but
Death you shall not.

You shall not deny
the stranger.”

(Ibid. 520-521)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

“How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God,
peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and
disappointments!

When
we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric,
then may God fire the heart with His presence.”

(Emerson, 74)

“If he (man) would know what the great God speaketh, he must ‘go into his
closet and shut the door,’ as Jesus said.”

(Ibid. 74)

“Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts.”

(Ibid. 75)

“It now shows itself ethical and practical. We learn that God IS; that He is
in me; and that all things are shadows of him.”

(Ibid. 77)

“In God every end is converted into a new means.”

(Ibid. 319)

“As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is
nourished by unfailing fountains and draws, at his need, inexhaustible
power.”

(Ibid. 325)

“The ardors of
piety agree at last with the coldest scepticism, -- that nothing is of us or
of our works,-- that all is of God. Nature will not spare us the smallest
leaf of laurel. All writing comes from the grace of God., and all doing and
having. I would gladly be moral and keep all due meets and bounds, which I
dearly love, and allow the most to the will of man; but I have set my heart
on honesty in this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in success or
failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal.”

(Hayford, 1962, 87)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That He
governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most
acceptable service we render to him is doing good to His children."

(Franklin, 1959, 292)

"And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and
necessary to solicit His acceptance for obtaining it; to this end I formed
the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables of examination,
for daily use.‘O powerful Goodness! Bountiful
Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest
interest. Strengthen my resolutions to perform that which wisdom dictates.
Accept my kind offices to Thy other children as the only return in my power
for Thy continual favours to me.’"

(Ibid. 88)

JOHANN GOETHE

"General, natural religion, properly speaking, requires no faith, for
the persuasion that a great producing, regulating and conducting Being
conceals himself, as it were, behind nature, to make himself comprehensible
to us. Such a conviction forces itself upon every one. Nay, if we for a
moment let drop this thread, which conducts us through life, it may be
immediately and everywhere resumed."

(Goethe, 1882, 114)

"God, the only, Eternal, Infinite, to whom all the splendid yet
limited creatures owe their existence."

(Ibid. 204)

"Nothing, therefore, remained to me but to part from this society;
and as for my love for the Holy Scriptures, as well as of the founder of
Christianity and its early professors, could not be taken from me."

(Ibid. 208)

"English, French, and Germans had attacked the Bible with more or
less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness, and just as often had it
been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each
nation. As for myself, I loved and valued it; for almost to it alone did I
owe my moral culture: and the events, the doctrines, the symbols. the
similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me and had influenced me
in one way or another. These unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks,
therefore, disgusted me."

(Ibid. 227)

NIKOLAI VASILYEVICH GOGOL

“The higher truths are, the more cautious one must be with them; otherwise
they are converted into common things, and common things are not believed .
. . The word must be treated honestly. It is the highest gift of God to
man.”

(Zeldin,
1969, 23)

“The Christian will show his humility before everyone, it is the first sign
by which he may be recognized as a Christian.”

(Ibid. 82)

“Leaf through the Old Testament: there you will find each of our present
events, you will see more clearly than day how the present has sinned before
God, and the terrible judgement of God upon it so manifestly presented that
the present will shake with trembling.”

(Ibid. 86)

“Go on your knees before God and beg His wrath and His love! Wrath against
what ruins man, love for the poor soul of the man who has been ruined and
who ruins himself.”

(Ibid. 88)

“Great is the God who makes us wise. And how does He make us wise? By that
very grief which we flee and from which we seek to hide ourselves.”

(Ibid. 90)

“All the gifts of God are given to us so that we may serve our fellows.”

(Ibid. 91)

HEINRICH HEINE

"God's satire weighs on me. The great author of the
universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, was bent on demonstrating, with
crushing force, to me, the little, earthly, German Aristophanes, how my
wittiest sarcasm are only pitiful attempts at jesting in comparison with
His, and how miserably I am beneath Him in humour, in colossal mockery."

(Pinney,
1963)

God
has made our eyes a pair,

So
we’d see clear everywhere

To
believe all that we read

Just
one eye would fill the need.

Two
eyes did God give likewise

So
we’d look and gape and stare

At
the world He made so fair

As a
feast for all man’s eyes;

(Draper, 1982, 799)

Faulting the Creator’s not a

Thing
befitting, as if clay

Would
be wiser than the potter!

(Ibid. 801)

HALLELUJAH

Sun and moon, and stars, in heaven’s light,

All
manifest the Lord God’s might;

And when the pious lift their gaze

They hymn the great Creator’s praise.

I do
not need to look so high.

Enough there are on earth, I find,

Of
works of art to please the eye

And gratify the admiring mind.

Yes,
yes, dear people earthward can

My
gaze fall modestly nor cease

To
find creation’s masterpiece:

Our
human heart, the heart of man.

......

The
Lord God’s glory I proclaim

Here as in Heaven, great is He.

To
Him I sing a Kyrie,

A
Hallelujah to His name.

He
wrought so fair, He wrought so fine

The
human heart with breath divine

He
blew therein from Heaven above

The spirit’s soul, whose name is love.

Away
with the wanton lyre of Greece,

And
let the libertine muses cease

Their dancing! With more pious lays

I’ll sing the great Creator’s praise.

Hence, pagan music, hence! I vow

That David’s pious harp shall ring

Through all the songs of praise I sing!

My
psalm cries Hallelujah now!

(Ibid.
83-85)

VICTOR HUGO

God places in His breath
and God blends with His voice

All the flowers of the
field, and the birds of the forest.

(Hugo, 1972, 553)

Cathedrals are beautiful

And rise high into the
blue sky

But the nests of the
swallows

Are the building of God

(Hugo, 1967, P. 565)

“Let us love! That’s
all. This is God’s will.”

(Ibid. 566)

“The soul exists

And the proof

Is the fact that we
contemplate creation

And that we contemplate
the Creator.

...

God promises everything
he manifests

Showing us the heavens
is like promising it to us

And having shown it to
us is having promised it to us.”

(Ibid. 839)

“God I suffer too much

I cannot tell you how
much

And what goes on inside
of me.

I cannot hide from you
the dark battles

The deep despair

When God breathes on
man, He acts on his inner being

And sees deep within
it.”

(Ibid. 840)

My Lord, my whole being
is, since my childhood,

A hymn to the beauty of
creation. (Ibid. 841)

Oh God --

Your masterpiece, the
world,

Has fallen into the
night.

(Ibid. 270)

Who do you think you
are, to believe that you are

Better than God, that
places the stars over your heads

And dazzles you, at
waking time,

with this prodigious
smile, the sun?

(Hugo, 1969, P. 346)

Let us rely on Him. Let
us think and live on our knees;

Let us stop believing
that we are wisdom, humility, light;

Let us not take one step
without prayer,

Because our perfections
will shine very little

After our death, before
the star and the blue sky.

Only God can save us.

(Ibid. P. 345)

We are darkness

God only is the only
blue needed by the world.

The abyss while talking
takes the atom as witness.

God only is great! This
is the psalm of the blade of grass;

God only is true! Is the
hymn of the proud wave;

God only is good! Is the
sound of the wind;

Ah! Do not delude
yourselves you living.

(Ibid. P. 345)

"This great and amazing
sky is the seal of God."

(Ibid. P. 450)

"God knows everything."

(Ibid. P. 451)

FRANZ KAFKA

"Today the longing for God and the fear of sin are gravely enfeebled. We
have sunk into a morass of presumption... Today there is no sin and no
longing for God. Everything is completely mundane and utilitarian. God lies
outside our existence. And therefore all of us suffer a universal paralysis
of conscience. All transcendental conflicts seem to have vanished, and yet
all of them defend themselves like the wooden figures of the Jacobskirche.
We are immobilized. We are completely transfixed. More than that! Most of us
are simply glued to the shaky stool of vulgar common sense by the filth of
fear. That is our entire way of life."

(Janouch,
1968, 51)

ALPHONSE
LAMARTINE

INVOCATION

To the sacred Father,
and His son, His image: come down Spirit of both, Spirit which is from age
to age.

...

You pierce, suddenly,
like the sun the dawn

With your Divine rays
the heart of Him who doubts still.

Come down, I want to
sing! But what can I without you,

Oh language of the
spirits. Speak within me,

Sing the great secrets
that only your eye lights up.

...

Do distance and space
matter to you?

At your sign times are
born or disappear,

And the trembling
future, at your eternal voice

Passes behind you like a
counted century.

...

May this fire whose
flame sheds light and purifies,

This charcoal that
burned the lips of Isaiah,

Purify the sounds of a
mortal mouth

And that my hymns toward
God rise like incense.

(Lamartine, 1873,
167-168)

Providence brings to
the surface near our reach a world of truths just like a father lowers the
branch to bring the fruit near to the small hands of his child.

(Ibid. P. 150)

I thought I
understood everything; but then I realized that it is God who allows me, one
of the most worthless intelligences, to understand.

(Ibid. P. 151)

God is, the ultimate
good, ultimate beauty, Perfect Being, the Being over all beings.

(Ibid. P. 152)

Man should serve,
love and fear God and he should put in him all of his thoughts and his
hopes.

(Ibid. P. 274)

All true Christians,
of all ranks and all places, and at all times pray to God. And the spirit
prays and intercedes for them, and God accepts them.

(Ibid. P. 276)

D. H. LAWRENCE

GOD

Where
sanity is

There
God is.

And
the sane can still recognise sanity

So
they can still recognise God.

(De
Sola Pinto, 516)

ABSOLUTE REVERENCE

I
feel absolute reverence to nobody and to nothing human

Neither to persons nor things nor ideas, ideals nor religions

Nor institutions,

To
those things I feel only respect, and a tinge of reverence

When
I see the fluttering of pure life in them.

But
to something unseen, unknown, creative

From
which I feel I am a derivative

I
feel absolute reverence. Say no more!

(Ibid. 622)

GIACOMO LEOPARDI

“I consider God, not as superior to all the possible beings . . . but as
having within Himself all the possibilities, and existing in all the
possible modes . . . His relationships toward men and toward His creatures
are perfectly convenient toward them; they are therefore perfectly good, and
better than those that other creatures have . . . Thus, all religion
remains standing, and the infinite perfection of God, that is negated as
being absolute, affirms itself as being relative, and as being perfect in
the order of things that we know, where the qualities that God has toward
the world, are relative to it, good and perfect.”

(Leopardi,
351)

“If God is above morality, if good and evil do not exist absolutely, etc.,
may not God deceive us in what He has revealed, promised, threatened, etc.
No, because He forbids deception.”

(Ibid. 358)

“The ten commandments contain general principles . . . conceived for the
good of humanity . . . They are infinite and diverse.”

(Ibid. 356)

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Wondrous truths, and manifold as

Wondrous,

God
has written in those stars above;

But
not less in the bright flowerets

Under
us

Stands the revelation of His love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,

Written all over this great world of

Ours;

(Longfellow, 1871, 5)

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

A PRAYER

"God!
do not let my loved one die,

But
rather wait until the time

That
I am grown in purity

Enough to enter Thy pure clime,

Then
take me, I will gladly go,

So
that my love remain below!

Oh
let her stay! She is my birth

What
I thought death must learn to be;

We
need her more on our poor earth than Thou canst need in Heaven with Thee;
She has her wings already, I

Must
burst this earth-she'll ere I fly.

Then,
God, take me! We shall be near,

More
near than ever, each to each.

Her
angel ears will find more clear

My
heavenly than my earthly speech;

And
still, as I draw nigh to Thee,

Her
soul and mine shall closer be.

(Lowell, 1895, 15)

ALESSANDRO MANZONI

Who
shaped plants’ stems?

Who
created the blooming wheat?

Who
makes life flow in the vine-shoot?

Who
placed in grapes its treasure?

You,
the Great One, the Holy One, the Good One,

That
now being a gift - your gift you retake;

You,
that in exchange, what an exchange! You give us

Your
Body, Your blood, oh Lord,

Even
the hearts that we offer You are yours:

Ah!
Your gift was broken by us;

But
the other Goodness which made them,

Will
receive them as they are, to mercy;

And
will breathe on them the breath that creates

That
faith that passes beyond any curtain,

That
hope which dies in the heavens,

That
love which will live eternally with you.”

(De
Castris, 1965, 165)

“Look
down merciful God,

To
dust which will hear You,

That
will disappear before Your presence.”

(Ibid, 165)

With
faithful love

I
come to your holy throne,

I
fall before Your presence,

My
Judge, my King!

With
what incomprehensible joy

I
tremble before You!

I am
dust and sin:

But
look at him who implores You

Who
wants Your forgiveness,

Who
deserves, who worships,

Who
gives thanks in me.”

(Ibid, 166)

You
are mine; with You I breathe:

I
live by You, Great God!

Mixed
with Yours

I
offer the love that’s Yours.

Fulfill all my wishes;

Speak, and all will hear;

Give
that all receives,

The
heart wherein You dwell.”

(Ibid, 166)

HERMAN MELVILLE

Letter to
Nathaniel Hawthorne (April 16, 1851)

“We incline to
think that God cannot explain His own secrets, and that He would like a
little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as
much as He us. But it is this Being of the matter; there lies the
knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God,
a nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from a beam.
Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would
have Him in the street.”

(Hayford, 1962, 329)

To Nathaniel Hawthorne (June,1?, 1851)

“The reason the
mass of men fear God, and at the bottom dislike Him, is because they rather
distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch.”

(Ibid. 331)

JOHN MILTON

From “Paradise Lost”

I

Hail holy light,
offspring of Heav'n first-born,

Or of th'Eternal
Coeternal beam

May I express thee
unblam'd since God is light,

And never but in
unapproached light

Dwelt from eternitie,
dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of
bright essence increate

Or hear=st
Thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

Whose Fountain who shall
tell? before the sun,

Before the Heavens Thou
wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a Mantle
didst invest

The rising world of
waters dark and deep,

Won from the void and
formless infinite.

(Ibid, Book III, 1-12)

O Son, in whom my souls
has chief delight,

Son of my bosom, Son who
art alone

My word, my wisdom, and
effectual might,

all hast thou spok'n as
my thoughts are, all

As my Eternal purpose
hath decreed:

Man shall not quite be
lost, but sav'd who will,

Yet not of will in him,
but grace in me

Freely vouchsafe; once
more I will renew

His lapsed powers,
though forfeit and enthrall'd

By sin to foul
exorbitant desires;

Upheld by me, yet once
more he shall stand

On even ground against
his mortal foe,

By me upheld , that he
may know how how frail

His fall'n is, and
to me ow

All his deliv'rance, and
to none but me.

(Ibid, Book III,
168-182)

Thee Father first they
sung Omnipotent,

Immutable, Immortal,
Infinite,

Eternal King; thee
author of all being,

Fountain of light, thy
self invisible

Amidst the glorious
brightness where thou sit'st

Thron'd inaccessible,
but when thou shad'st

The full blaze of thy
beams, and through a cloud

Drawn round about thee
like a radiant shrine,

Dark with excessive
bright thy skirts appeer,

Yet dazle Heav'n, that
brightest Seraphim

Approach not, but with
both wings veil their eyes.

(Ibid., Book III,
372-382)

“Let
us require no better authority than God Himself

for determining
what is worthy or unworthy of Him.”

(Robins, 1963, 67)

“If
after the work of six days it be said of God that he rested and was
refreshed. . . let us believe that it is not beneath the dignity of God . .
. to be refreshed in that which refreshed Him . . . For however we may
attempt to soften down such expressions by a latitude of interpretation,
when applied to the Deity, it comes in the end to precisely the same.”

(Ibid. 67)

“Our
safest way is to form in our minds such a conception of God, as shall
correspond with His own delineation and representation of Himself in the
sacred writings.”

(Ibid. 67)

“We
may be sure that sufficient care has been taken that the Holy Scriptures
should contain nothing unsuitable to the character or dignity of God, and
that God should say nothing of Himself which could derogate from His own
majesty.”

(Ibid. 67)

WILLIAM PENN

"Whatever else is
done or omitted, be sure to begin and end with God."

(Elliot,
1937, 328)

"Country life is to
be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else
than the works of men."

(Ibid. 342)

"As puppets are to
babies, and babies to children, so is man's workmanship to God's; We are the
picture, He's the reality."

(Ibid. 342)

"God's works declare
His power, wisdom, goodness; but man's works, for the most part, his pride
folly and excess. The one is for the use, the other chiefly, for ostentation
and lust."

(Ibid. 366)

"It is a severe
rebuke upon us, that God makes us so many allowances, and we make so few to
our neighbour."

(Ibid. 366)

“Love is above all,
and when it prevails in us all, we shall be lovely, and in love with God and
one another.”

(Ibid. 1937)

“Religion itself is
nothing else but to love God and man.”

(Ibid. 1937)

PETRARCH

Bowing one’s knees to God,
brings much benefit,

The knees and the mind

That your years preserves for
much good.

(Petrarch, 1969, 47)

Heavenly Father, after lost
days,

After many wasted nights

With that intense desire that
burned inside my heart,

Looking at the actions that
for my harm adorn it,

May it please you, with your
light, that I may return

To another light and to much
better accomplishments,

So that in spite of traps
prepared by him,

My harsh adversary may be
ashamed.

Now ends, my Lord the
eleventh year

That I was subjected to my
cruel punishment

That is most burdensome upon
the most humble;

Have mercy of my unworthy
suffering

Remind them how today you
were on the cross.

(Neri, 118)

From “I BELIEVE”

If God wants me to believe
that He is

Everywhere,

And that

He watches over all and,
therefore,

On me as well;

That He dispenses one justice

Which we with our measuring
stick

Cannot measure nor
understand.

Should I displease Him?

I will believe in Him.”

(Pirandello, 1960)

Come back, I pray you, to us,
come back, Messiah,

To preach love;

Come back with a pure hand

To knock on undeserving doors
again,

Where a dark people

Dies of hunger and cold!

Others wrapped with your red
mantle,

With hatred nurturing your
gentle word,

Knock on the dark houses, and
abounds the visage

Of misery. Fly

Already the noise of war . .
.

Peace you are, Jesus, you are
mercy:

Come back to restore on earth

Love to charity.

(Ibid. 807)

When on the cross Jesus gave
up the ghost,

All, for a moment,

On the earth, life stood
still.

(Ibid. 681)

“The modern spirit is
profoundly ill, and invokes God as

a man on his death bed.”

(Ibid. 893)

“O good God, who at the
present is not a degenerate?

Who can call himself healthy?
In all of us one can see the

. . . signs of degeneracy.”

(Ibid. 893)

ALEXANDER
POPE

“God, in the nature of each
being, founds

Its proper bliss, and sets
its proper bounds;

But as he framed the whole,
the whole to bless,

On mutual wants built mutual happiness.”

(Roscoe, 1847, 11)

That chain that links th’immense
design,

Joins heaven and earth, and
mortal and divine;

Sees that no being any bliss
can know,

But touches some above and
some below.

(Ibid. 13)

Say first, of world above, or
man below,

What can we reason, but from
what we know?

Of man, what see we but his
station here,

From which to reason, or to
which refer?

Through worlds unnumber’d,
tho’
the God be known,

Tis ours to trace Him only in
our own.

He, who through vast
immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compose
one universe,

Observe how system into
system runs,

What other planets circle
other suns.”

(Ibid. 24)

Is the great chain , that
draws all to agree ,

And drawn supports, upheld by
God, or Thee?

(Ibid. 25)

“What if the head, the eye, or ear pepin’d

To serve more engines to the
ruling mind?

Just as absurd for any part
to claim

To be another, in this gen’ral
frame:

Just as absurd, to mourn the
tasks or pains,

To great directing MIND OF
ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one
stupendous whole,

Whose body nature is, and God the soul;”

(Ibid. 47)

PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER

PURE MEN
AND WOMEN TOO

Pure men and women too,
all the world unspotted,

That they might fortify
the heart against life's stress,

Composed such prayers as
still comfort us and bless.

But none has stirred in me
such deep emotions

As that the priest recites
at Lententide devotions,

The words which mark for
us that saddest season rise

Most often to my lips, and
in that prayer lies

Support ineffable when I,
a sinner, hear it:

"Thou Lord my life, avert
Thou from my spirit

both idle melancholy and
ambitious sting,

That hidden snake, and joy
in foolish gossiping.

But let me see, O God, my
sins, and make confession,

So that my brother be not
dammed by my transgression,

And quicken Thou in me the
breath and being of

Both fortitude and
meekness, chastity and love."

(Yarmolinski, 1964, 86)

FRANCOIS RABELAIS

“The Father who directs all that is and
that is made according to His free will and His pleasure.”

(Febvre, 1962, 260)

“When you say the word God, what does it
mean to you? To me it means an Eternal Spirit who has no beginning, who has
no end, such as no greater, no wiser or better can be conceived; By one act
of His omnipotence He created all things, visible and invisible. His
admirable wisdom regulates and governs the whole universe; His goodness
nourishes and preserves all of His creation.

(Ibid. 262)

“Without (God’s) sustenance and government
all things, in a moment, would become nothing, just as they had been created
for nothing.”

(Ibid. 263)

“What takes place is not what we wish or
ask for, but what pleases Jesus Christ, our Lord whom God had established
before the heavens were made…”

(Ibid. 263)

“Almighty God, who has created all things.”

(Ibid. 264)

“There is no other ruler besides God the
Creator.”

(Ibid. 264)

“(God) who never will abandon those who
put their trust in Him.”

(Ibid. 64)

“Let us pray to God the Creator, let us
worship Him, let us rectify our faith in Him, let us glorify Him for his
endless goodness.”

(Ibid. 266)

“We are all sinners and continually ask
God to cleanse us of our sins.”

(Ibid. 270)

“This life is transitory but the word of
God endures forever.”

(Ibid. 271)

“Man must serve, love and fear God and in
Him he must put all his thoughts and all his hopes, and by hope shaped by
charity he must bond with Him so that he will never be defeated by sin.”

(Ibid. 274)

“All true Christians, of all ranks, in all
places pray God always. The Holy Spirit intercedes for them and God accepts
them in His grace.”

(Ibid. 276)

TOLSTOY, LEV

PRAYER

"Oh
God, God inconceivable, … I have erred,…I knew that I was going astray…
but I never forgot Thee. I always felt Thy presence even in the very
moment of my sins. I all but lost Thee, but Thou hast …saved me"
(Wilson, 1988, 315)

"God
and the soul are known by me in the same way I know infinity: not by means
of definitions but in quite another way...Just as I know assuredly that
there is an infinity of numbers so do I know that there is a God"

(Tolstoy,
1937, 498)

“For life
is life, only when it is the carrying out of God's purpose. But, by opposing
Him, people deprive themselves of life, and at the same time, neither for
one year, nor one hour, can they delay the accomplishment of God's purpose."

(Tolstoy, 1927,
165)

“Traditions may proceed from men and be false; but reason indubitably comes
from God.”

(Ibid, P. 164)

“The only
reasonable conception of life is the accomplishment of the will of Him who
sent us into the world – that is, the will of God.”

(Ibid, P. 165)

“The longer
we live the more clearly and fully do we learn the will of God, and in
consequence what we must do to fulfill it.”

(Ibid, P. 165)

“Does
truth cease to be truth because the men who professed it become weak under
the pressure of torture? That which is of God must conquer that which is of
man.”

(Ibid, P. 302)

“There
will be the thing which ought to be, that which is well-pleasing to God,
which is according to the law He has put in our heart and revealed to our
minds.”

(Ibid, P. 302)

“The
solution before us is…by nothing else than a forward movement along that
road which the law of Christ points out to the hearts of men.”

(Ibid, P. 303)

“Yet
another effort, and the Galilean will conquer. Not in that ruthless sense
understood by the pagan emperor, but in that true sense in which He himself
spoke of His conquest of the world.”

(Ibid, P. 303)

“He has
actually overcome the world.”

(Ibid, P. 303)

“For life
is life only when it is the carrying out of God’s purpose. But by opposing
Him, people deprive themselves of life, and at the same time, neither for
one year, nor for one hour, can they delay the accomplishment of God’s
purpose.”

(Ibid, P. 308)

“Each will
have to make his own choice: to oppose the will of God, building upon the
sands the unstable house of his brief illusive life, or to join in the
eternal, deathless movement of true life in accordance with God’s will.”

(Ibid, P. 378)

FUNDAMENTAL
CREEDS

1. Man is the
son of the Infinite Source of Being; he is the son of the Father, not by the
flesh but by the Spirit.

2. And
therefore, man must serve the Source of his being in the Spirit.

3. The life of
all men has Divine origin. The origin only is sacred.

4. And
therefore, man must serve the Source of all human life. This is the will of
the Father.